Hi Loretta, First, the best bet to see the whales is to walk on the sea front and turn left from Fanabe. You will come across numerous boat hire companies with various ships, or, if you go down the hill to the beach you will see the main shopping street. It has 3 ways down, take the right hand walkway and right opposite the chinese restaurant is a booking agent where not only can you book your whale trip they also do Mount Tiede.
This agent is about 50% cheaper than that offered by our Thomas Cook rep. We also used this place to change our sterling into Euro's.
We have just come back this week and the weather was perfect (we too stayed in the Fanabe area at the Rui Adeje )

The Toonman

There is a bus (I think it's the 342) that runs once a day from Playa de las Americas to Mt. Teide, if you want to go independently, which will be much cheaper than an organised trip. This will take you to the cable car station if you want to actually go up to the top but I believe long queues can form, although I never actually been on it myself.

Hi
I hope you enjoy your holiday, to answer your question about whale and dolphin trips. Yes they do operate this time of year(I went on a trip on wednesday) you will be able to find lots of info once you get to your resort, I went on the 5 hour trip,which I found to be to long, I think the 3 hour trip would have been better, The sea was nice and calm, the whales swim within feet of the boat and even underneath the boat.the dolphins were visible but not very close,we had a few dull days last week,very dark and cloudy,but when the sun does come out it's very hot. please put sun cream on even if it's cloudy 'cos you will burn.
Enjoy yourselves
Ian

I found the 2 hour trip to be long enough but of course it depends on personnel preference - there are only so many dolphins / whales (that look like dolphins!) that you want to see. The following webcam link shows where the trips start in LC.

http://217.126.211.198:1061/

A while ago you could get cheaper trips if you approached those who were part of the crew boarding the boats rather than buy from the quayside booths who take their commission (as you would expect) - not sure if this is still the case.

Have been to Tenerife loads of times and have never had rain all the day just the odd bit of rainfall etc. However, this winter is a becoming a little unpredictable - but not as bad as last year.

We were on holiday in Lanzarote a couple of weeks ago and the rain we had was a distraction - we popped into the shops when it rained and came out to the sunshine 10 minutes later when it had stopped !

Off to Fuerteventura tomorrow (Sun) and the forecast is sun / rain - not worrying about it a bit - it will be warm and the sun will soon be shining !

Thanks for your replies, we're off in the morning

We went on the Freebird Catamaran last August - booked it through the hotel reps (yes, I know we could have got it cheaper elsewhere, but we were only there a week and wanted to cram plenty in without spending too much time 'shopping around' comparing prices)
We did the 3-hour trip out to see the whales - it was OK but we didn't see any dolphins and the pilot whales were a bit shy. I got very seasick (along with a lot of other people...) sailing out to sea was OK but then the boat stopped where the whales were and stayed there for ages bobbing around and the combination of the bobbing motion and the hot sun reflecting on the waves made quite a few of us feel very queasy
We booked a trip with a local agent up to Teide and then over to Loro Parque - that was a good day out, but if you've never seen Loro Parque before then I'd definitely recommend a full day for it instead of just half a day. Teide is great but, depending on the weather, they don't always have the cable cars running up to the top. We also did a full day trip over to La Gomera with a coach tour of the island and lunch and ferry included.
As other people have said, there are loads of agents all over the resort selling various trips, and they are better value for money than the ones you'd book with the hotel reps, but a lot of people just feel more comfortable sticking with the reps trips - that's your own personal choice - do whatever you feel best.
Have a great holiday! Tenerife is a fantastic island and whatever you do, slap on the suncream even when it's cloudy